Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
DETAILED ACTION
This Office action is in response to Applicant’s amendment filed on 6/25/2026. The claims 1-16 are pending.
Response to Arguments
The previous claim objections have been withdrawn based on the currently amended claims filed 6/25/26.
Applicant's arguments filed 6/25/26 with regards to the previous 35 U.S.C. 101 and 103 rejection have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues on pages 6-9 of the remarks that the claims are directed to “a specific data structure” and technology improvement.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. Applicant references paragraphs [0007]-[0009] of the Specification for demonstrating the technology improving with concatenating blocks to avoid “unnoticed deletion of individual blocks of measured values together with their signatures”. Applicant is respectfully reminded that these description and intended technology improvement has not been explicitly claimed and therefore no patentable weight has been given. Specifically, page 8 of the Remarks states the “the practical application of grouping, calculating a signature value, etc. is avoid ‘unnoticed deletion of individual blocks of measured values together with their signatures.’”, however, Claim 1 merely states the “grouping of measured values into blocks” and “calculating a signature value for each block…”. Examiner respectfully recommends incorporating limitations specify argued and mentioned from the Specification.
Applicant argues on page 9 that claim 16’s “measurement arrangement” is directed to one of the four statutory categories by comprising at least one sensor.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. An “arrangement” may be interpreted as a method and is therefore within one of the statutory categories but the claim body lacks any method or steps to qualify as a method claim. The “measurement arrangement” may be interpreted as a data format, which is also not within one of the statutory categories as it is clearly a physical apparatus. As the preamble claiming “a measurement arrangement” does not clearly falls into one of the statutory categories, the body claiming “at least one sensor” and “recording device as claimed in claim 14” has not been given weight with regards to the 101 analysis. Examiner respectfully recommends amendment the preamble from “A measure arrangement, comprising:” to “A measure arrangement system, comprising:” or the like.
Applicant argues on pages 10-11
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-16 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims essentially recites grouping the measure values into blocks and calculating a signature for each blocks, which falls under the abstract idea grouping of “mathematical concepts” with performing a mathematical calculations to create a “signature value”. (See the 2019 PEG). This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the claims merely gather data and calculating a signature of the data, which is well-understood, routine, conventional activity in the field. The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The claims also falls under the abstract idea of “mental processes” as the grouping and calculating of a signature without further complicated details can be performed by in a human mind.
Claim 16 is also rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim does not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because the claim recites “a measurement arrangement”, which is not one of the four statutory category. Even if the term “arrangement” is broadly interpreted as arranging a series of steps to fall under the “process” category, the claim does not comprise any steps.
Applicant argues on pages 10-11 that Griffin does not disclose “wherein at least one of the blocks contains at least one of the measured values which is also contained in at least one other one of the blocks”.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. Under the 35 U.S.C. 103 rejection below, Examiner relied on AAPA for disclosing the claim’s “measured values” and the grouping and calculating a signature for each block, but AAPA does not explicitly disclose the “measure values” being contained in at least one other one of the blocks, which Griffin teaches this using linked values between multiple blocks (Col. 10, lines 12-21) as well as parallel recording storing signatures with linked values (Col. 5, lines 44-50). Griffen does not explicitly disclose the linked values as underlying data content, however, AAPA discloses the measured values as underlying data content with Griffin providing the motivation for including a linked value in order to “provide technical improvements over existing blockchain systems by enabling entities to each individually preserve integrity and origin authenticity of blockchain content using the respective entities' desired cryptographic algorithms and techniques.” (Col. 5, lines 53-57). Examiner recognizes Griffin’s invention differs in that Griffin’s linked values does not disclose applicant’s goal of preventing “unnoticed deletion of individual blocks of measured values together with their signatures”, however, the claims as written does not include any deletion step and therefore Griffen in view of AAPA teaches all limitations of the claims as currently presented.
The Office action below has been updated reflecting the amended claims and updating mapping for clarity.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Applicant’s Admitted Prior Arts (hereinafter AAPA) in view of Griffin et al. (US Pat No 10,868,668).
AAPA teaches
1. A method for recording a field of measured values, wherein the field of measured values has, for each measured value, at least one measurement datum and an associated position indication in the field, the method comprising:
grouping the measured values into blocks; and
calculating a signature value for each block (e.g., Applicant admitted prior arts disclosing “a method is widely used in practice” “for recording a field of measured values, wherein the field of measured values has, for each measured value, at least one measurement datum and an associated position indication in the field, wherein the measured values are grouped into blocks and a signature value is calculated for each block” ¶ 0002).
AAPA discloses the claimed subject matter as discussed above with using the measured values, grouping and calculating a signature for each block, but does not explicitly disclose the values is also contained in at least one another of the blocks. However, analogous art from the same field of endeavor, Griffin teaches this with “the record management circuit 126 of the PABS computing system 106 defines and stores a second PABS record, as shown in FIG. 3.…the first PABS record may be associated, by the PABS computing system 106, with the second PABS record such that the signed records that share certain values or characteristics, represent user-defined anchor points (milestones) of interest, or pertain to related events are thereby aggregated and/or linked.” (Col. 10, lines 12-21) disclosing multiple blocks with “anchor points” being shared between the multiple blocks. Griffin further discloses using parallel record storing using different digital signatures which also teaches multiple blocks having common values (Col. 5, lines 44-50). Therefore, based on AAPA in view of Griffin, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to utilize the teaching of Griffin to the system of AAPA in order to “provide technical improvements over existing blockchain systems by enabling entities to each individually preserve integrity and origin authenticity of blockchain content using the respective entities' desired cryptographic algorithms and techniques.” (Col. 5, lines 53-57) . Hence, it would have been obvious to combine the references to obtain the invention of “wherein at least one of the blocks contains at least one of the measured values which is also contained in at least one other one of the blocks”, and therefore the prior arts above, when combine teaches the claim as a whole.
The prior arts above further teach claim:
2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the at least one measured value is arranged at a fixed position in at least one of the at least one block or the at least one other block (e.g., linking identifier at fixed data structure @ Griffin Col. 16, lines 30-42 & Fig. 7A).
The prior arts above further teach claim:
3. The method as claimed in claim 2, wherein the at least one measured value is arranged at an edge position in the at least one of the at least one block or the at least one other block (e.g., edge position @ Griffin Col. 16, lines 30-42 & Fig. 7A).
The prior arts above further teach claim:
4. The method as claimed in claim 2, further comprising determining the fixed position of the at least one measured value in the at least one of the at least one block or the at least one other block from the associated position indication (e.g., measured value having an associated position indication @ AAPA ¶ 0002 & respective data structure @ Griffin Col. 17, lines 24-42).
The prior arts above further teach claim:
5. The method as claimed in claim1, further comprising forming each block from a group of the measured values that is contiguous with respect to the field (e.g., contiguous grouping @ Griffin Col. 15, lines 59-66).
The prior arts above further teach claim:
6. The method as claimed in claim 5, wherein the field is one-dimensional (e.g., @ Griffin Fig. 2E).
The prior arts above further teach claim:
7. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising determining the position indication by a measurement time (e.g., timing of the transaction and block @ Griffin Col. 6, lines 6-17).
The prior arts above further teach claim:
8. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising calculating a hash value of the block for the signature value (e.g., hash calculation of the block @ Griffin Fig 2 #204 and Figs. 2B-D).
The prior arts above further teach claim:
9. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising reading out measurement data from at least one sensor to form the position indication in the field (e.g., @ AAPA ¶ 0002 and @ Griffin Col. 6, lines 6-17).
The prior arts above further teach claim:
10. The method as claimed in claim 9, further comprising determining and processing a measurement time as the measurement data to form the position indication in the field (e.g., @ AAPA ¶ 0002 & @ Griffin Col. 6, lines 6-17).
Claim 11 is substantially similar to claim 1 above, and therefore the claim is likewise rejected. The prior arts above further encapsulating previous records within one another (@ Griffin Col. 15, lines 54-67) teaching the forming of new group limitations.
The prior arts above further teach claim:
12. The method as claimed in claim 11, further comprising forming the at least one block in the new grouping from at least two of the blocks in the existing grouping from the at least two of the blocks in the existing grouping which have at least one measured value in common, and only singly including the at least one common measured value in the block in the new grouping (e.g., encapsulating the PABS records into a new group @ Griffin Col. 15, lines 54-67 and using linking identifiers @ Col. 16, lines 13-45).
Claim 13 is substantially similar to claims 1-2 above, and therefore the claim is likewise rejected. Furthermore, AAPA at ¶ 0003 discloses a method for verifying that is known in the art per Applicant’s admission
Claim 14 is substantially similar to claim 1 above, and therefore the claim is likewise rejected. Furthermore, AAPA at ¶ 0004 discloses a recording device for measured value using a grouper and a signer that is known in the art per Applicant’s admission.
Claim 15 is substantially similar to claims 1-2 above, and therefore the claim is likewise rejected. Furthermore, AAPA at ¶ 0005 discloses verification device that is known in the art per Applicant’s admission
Claim 16 is substantially similar to claims 1 above, and therefore the claim is likewise rejected. Furthermore, AAPA at ¶ 0006 discloses a measurement arrangement that is known in the art per Applicant’s admission
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHAU LE whose telephone number is (571)270-7217. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00-5:00.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, LINGLAN EDWARDS can be reached at (571) 270-5440. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/CHAU LE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2408
Prosecution Insights